Intriguing as it is, the Miami Heat's young core is rife with uncertainty. And, no, we're not talking about Kasparas Jakucionis' summer league struggles, nor the fact that Kel'el Ware required the rare offseason call-out.
Shift to the older end of Miami's youth movement, and you'll find a pair of players who've appeared as both essential building blocks and expendable trade chips in Jaime Jaquez Jr. and Nikola Jović. And while it seems as if the franchise remains big fans of both, the reality is that fitting both into the long-term plans could prove impossible, particularly with the club carefully monitoring its finances.
Jović is eligible for an extension this offseason, and Jaquez will be next summer. Finding the funds for one long-term deal will be tricky, let alone two, especially with the club potentially working out an extension for Tyler Herro and still entertaining high hopes for free agencies ahead.
One of Miami's young forwards might have to go.
If Miami's decision-makers are running through some Jaquez-vs.-Jović debates, they might try to frame it simply as the known vs. the unknown.
That's overly simplified—Jaquez feels mysterious after last season's disappearing act, and Jović already has three seasons under his belt—but it sort of works, at least well enough to hash out basic ideas. In essence, it's a reflection of the belief that Jaquez is the much closer of the two to his ceiling, for better and worse.
Jaquez feels like a known commodity. He was billed as a fundamentals-over-physicals kind of cerebral prospect coming out of UCLA, and that's basically how he thrived as a freshman. His quick processing skills and the well-rounded nature of his game were both on full display during his All-Rookie first-team effort in 2023-24.
That said, the Heat better hope he's far from done developing, because as they learned last season, it's hard to find him consistent floor time when he's a liability as both an outside shooter and defender.
With Jović, the excitement is more built around what he could become as opposed to what he's already been. While he does have those three NBA seasons on his resume, they only resulted in a total of 2,256 minutes—fewer than Bub Carrington, last summer's 14th pick, has played—as the Heat have shuffled Jović into their starting lineup, out of their rotation, and everywhere in between.
His upside still fascinates the mind. He's a 6'10" forward with a 37 career three-point percentage and an impressive comfort level with the ball in his hands. He'll always have some deficiencies as a defender, but if he can maximize his playmaking potential, Miami would live with his limitations.
That's a long-winded way of saying neither player is perfect, but none are at this stage of their careers. That's what makes long-term decisions so difficult to make. The Heat won't have the full picture of either player when they're potentially forced to make a decision between one or the other.
Miami should, at least, have a little time to make this call, since an extension with Jović right now would carry plenty of unknowns for both him and the team. That said, there is a ticking clock hovering above the Heat's heads, and they should keep that in mind as they track each player's developmental progress over the upcoming campaign. It'll quite possibly b